An intelligent, well-crafted horror film...

Rating: 8/10 (13 July 2003)

The trailer from 28 Days Later makes the film look like a remake of The Omega Man, which starred Charlton Heston as the last man on earth, save for a handful of Survivors and many many nocturnal zombies. It looked like a shameless remake, in fact, seemingly counting on enough time having passed that no one would notice the similarities- the apocalyptic plague, the number and race and gender of the survivors, the nature and appearance of the Zombies. As a fan of the zombie genre, and of the post-apocalyptic genre, I noticed, and was very disappointed that the guy who brought me Trainspotting had sunk this low as to do a remake of the Omega Man without even billing it as such. At least Ridley Scott upcoming remake is using the original novel's title, "I am legend". But I was wrong. It's not Omega Man Redux, it has it's own original story which is among the best in its genres. It references the Living Dead films, especially the best of that series, Dawn of the Dead, and the darkest of the series, Day of the Dead. In the postapocalyptic genre, it references the best of the 1980's :the the underrated 1985 film Night of the Comet, and the art-house version of the same year, The Quiet Earth. It also references the post-nuclear-war films of that decade: despite the title, not so much The Day After, more like the far more human version:Testamtent, and the far more depressing British version:Threads. Thus it draws form the best of each genre, mixing them together to somehow form a tru;ly scary, unsettling, creepy, bleak, yet fun film. And moreover it does this while remaining only very slightly postmodern- cynical, but never tongue-in cheek liek the characters in Kevin Williamson films who have to beat us over the head with how aware they are of the conventions of their genre. The best line of the film, the last woman on earth to the last man: "So what do you want, then Jim? For us to find a cure and save the world? Or just fall in love and f***?" The heroes are likeable, and you root for them and feel for themm when they die or turn into zombies. The villains are fleshed out- but just enough to be a little sympathtic and realistic. That goes for the humans villains, who ultimately are just trying to survive- and the zombies, all of whom can be seen to have varying degrees of resistance to their carnivorous nature, based on the strength of their character. Visually, the film tries to scare you in the usual horror film "it was just a cat" ways, but it also tries a few smore subtle tricks with the film stock to overcome the film's fantastic subject matter and draw the audience into beleiving this is real. While much of the film is shot on what appears to be 8 or 16mm, which makes it look like more of a documentary, it avoids the Blair Witch-style hand held shots, favoring an unusually static camera with unusal, unsettling, almost random composition in the frame, giving the feel of the action having been caught on hundreds of Englands security cameras, and edited together from that. I cannot recommend this film highly enough to fans of the zombie, post-apocalyptic, or last-man-on-earth sub-genres- it rivals the best, and I recommend it strongly to all others who happen to enjoy an intelligent, well-crafted horror film.